PORT DISTRICT’S MASTER PLAN UPDATE TO COVER 50 YEARS

First phase includes taking inventory of assets, ‘extensive public participation’

The San Diego bayfront, full of industry, hotels, parks and boats, looks like it was planned that way.

But in the eyes of critics, including the California Coastal Commission, it has all come about through piecemeal planning, one plot, one tower at a time, in the form of multiple amendments to the San Diego Unified Port District’s 1980 master plan.

Now, that’s all about to change.

Prompted by Chairwoman Ann Moore, the port is about to replace a 33-year-old plan and multiple amendments and fashion a “comprehensive integrated port master plan update” that looks 50 years ahead — a timely birthday present in the port’s 50th anniversary year.

So far 10 teams have been interviewed to conduct the $500,000 first phase — a reconnaissance of the port’s assets, guiding principles and the layout of the framework for the future and “extensive public engagement.” A shortlist of consultants will be presented for board consideration Aug. 13 and if one team is picked, work would begin six days later.

Port spokeswoman Tanya Castaneda said a timeline for completion of the first phase and the five subsequent phases has not been established. But at the end of the process, the plan will have to pass muster with the coastal commission, whose staff has repeatedly dinged the port for short-term, project-based planning.

Don Wood, a member of the port’s Citizens Advisory Committee, welcomed the new planning effort, but suggested it focus on 10-year increments.

“Hopefully piecemeal will go away,” he said. “The proof will come up when the port comes up with a port master plan project. If it’s part of implementing the long-term master plan, the process is working. If they don’t and every project that comes along goes against the long-term master plan, then it’s business as usual.”

• Takeover and redevelopment of Navy properties, such as the Broadway Complex, MCRD and other bases if Congress orders a new round of base closings in the decades ahead.

• Completion of the North Embarcadero Visionary Plan, whose first phase between B Street and Navy piers is under construction.

• Less industry and more parkland and commercial uses at the marine terminals.

• Completion of the Chula Vista Bayfront master plan.

• Turning Navy Pier next to the Midway Museum into a park with or without the proposed “Wings of Freedom” sculpture.

“It makes sense to be dreaming dreams and putting together long-term visions than fighting over every piecemeal plan,” Wood said. “It would cut down on feuding and arguing and lawsuits and it would be cheaper for everyone.”